They Taught Me Manners, Not Consent

By Sharda Gupta

They taught me

to keep my voice folded

like a handkerchief in my pocket,

clean, unused,

never to be raised,

never to be loud.

They taught me

to sit like a question

that dared not be asked,

to smile like a mirror

that reflects everyone

but never itself.

They taught me

how to serve tea

with trembling hands,

how to laugh without volume,

how to cover my chest

with shame stitched

by mothers who once bled silently too.

They told me

he is your elder,

he is your brother,

he is your teacher,

he is your God.

Bow.

Don't ask.

Don't look.

Don't speak.

And when he looked too long,

when his hands hovered too close,

they said:

“You must have misunderstood.”

But I remember—

how he closed the door

and opened my skin.

How my silence choked me

more than his breath.

And still,

they served him sweets

and blamed my skirt

for the hunger in his eyes.

I was taught

how to be good.

Not how to be safe.

They taught me

to be polite to predators,

to smile while drowning,

to whisper “I’m fine”

while bleeding.

They never taught me

to say,

“Get your hands off me.”

They never taught me

that my no

was not a negotiation.

They never told him

to ask.

He learned to take.

I learned to endure.

And the world—

it kept spinning

on the axis of excuses.

Now, I unlearn.

I unlearn the smile.

I unlearn the silence.

I unlearn the worship of men

who do not deserve

to be knelt before.

This is my rebellion—

not with fists,

but with the word no,

screamed,

carved,

sung, like thunder.

I am not polite anymore.

I am fire,

and fire does not ask

before it burns.